Species ca. 50 (4 in the flora): tropical regions, North America, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America, Africa, Asia in India.

Pleopeltis is a neotropical genus of mostly epiphytic ferns. Its center of diversity is in southern Mexico and Central America. The genus is currently under revision, and preliminary data indicate that certain scaly-leaved species traditionally placed in the genus Polypodium are actually more closely related to Pleopeltis than they are to Polypodium . The two North American species of this scaly Polypodium group recently have been transferred to Pleopeltis (M. D. Windham 1993) and are similarly treated here.